Re: [gentoo-dev] Perl self-tests

[David Sparks]

Dylan Carlson wrote:
> On Thu October 21 2004 21:05, David Sparks wrote:
>
>>Gentoo with its plethora of compiler flags and libs is an environment
>>where the Perl core regression tests really add confidence that the
>>language is working properly.
>
>
> I disagree.  Confidence for who... Gentoo developers?

Confidence for the person who just built and installed Perl.


> Perl can break
> despite automated tests.  That's pretty much true for any application.
> Automated tests are mainly a tool for upstream and OS developers updating
> perl versions, such as when we decide to version bump and ~mask.
> Optionally for downstream user-developers who are seeing problems with a
> perl application and need to be sure it isn't perl itself.

These tests are not only for the P5P devs.  They should always be run to 
verify Perl was correctly built.  Bugs can be introduced into Perl from 
outside the Perl sources via libs, compiler, etc.


> Forcing everyone to go through the torture tests is unnecessary, especially
> since it causes problems for some people.  It should be optional.  That is
> what "maketest" and src_test is for.

What is wrong with "forcing" the test suite?  And they aren't torture 
tests either, they are tests of core functionality and regression tests 
to make sure that fixed bugs do not re-appear.  I don't agree that 
validation of a programming language can be considered optional.  The 
P5P devs have worked hard to provide a comprehensive test suite and the 
ebuild should take advantage of it.

There are no known bugs in the test suite (that I'm aware of).  If Perl 
fails the test suite after being built, then that Perl does not work 
properly and should not be installed.

IOW, never, ever install Perl if it fails the test suite!

Cheers!

ds

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